Lead Generation for New Home Builders
A house isn’t a home until it has someone to live in it and while the UK has a shortage of houses for people to turn into homes, it’s unfortunately not as simple as ‘if you build it, they will come’.
Properties don’t sell themselves, you need to make people aware of them and capture their interest. In a super competitive market, new home developers need to work hard to attract buyers, so how do you maximise off-plan sales and minimise stock plots – and time on market for plots? In other words, how do you avoid ending up with a development that is just a field of dreams and empty houses?
This is where investing in lead generation is so crucial for acquiring potential customers, but how much should you be spending and what tactics should you be utilising? Remember it’s not just what your investment will generate for you now, it is also what it will build up to over the course of the development build programme.
It’s also important to think about how the creative element of your campaigns reflects your brand and, along with your messaging, resonates with the local area and target market. It really matters what you say, and to who, as well as where you say it.
At Social we’ve worked on property marketing campaigns for new home builders, housing associations, property developers and retirement living operators, so here are our top three tips for effective new home customer lead generation that will maximise footfall to sales centres and show homes and drive quality leads to sales teams:
Be targeted
On one level, lead generation for new home builders means reaching as many people as you can in the area around your developments, raising awareness of the homes and of your brand, which is essential if you’re new to the area or not yet a household name.
However, this will only go so far and good lead generation tactics mean refining this wider audience down – through an understanding the demographics of your catchment area – to people who are in the market for a new home or looking to move home.
The right mix of channels and tactics used in an integrated way will create a halo effect with each channel amplifying the other to extend your reach and increase awareness levels.
Do your research and test
An important thing to remember about lead generation is that there’s no one size fits all approach. What works for one development location or property type in one area won’t necessarily work for that same home type at another development.
Research and understand the current trends and the history of the local market. Be clear on the demographics of your development catchment area and test channels, tactics and messaging to attract the right type of customers to your development and available property mix.
Think short term and long term based on the development build route and pipeline of new release properties.
This means understanding who will be interested in buying your homes. Are they more likely to sell to first time buyers or growing families? Buyer personas can be a useful tool for working out who you are targeting and how and where you can reach them.
Be agile
Testing and optimising your campaign spend into the channels that are proving to work for you and your development and maximising the spend in those that deliver the highest levels of leads at the lowest CPA (Cost per Acquisition) across Shared Ownership, Help to Buy and Open Market Sales is critical.
Whether it’s PPC, paid and organic social media, programmatic display, OOH, or press, radio, TV or streaming media ads or direct mail and door drops, you need to be flexible and agile when it comes to campaign delivery to react to what is happening on the ground. However, be aware that it might be a range or mixture of tactics that yield the best results for your budget.
Review your build route and new release plans as your development builds out to inform campaign plans and messaging as, as different house types come to market, you will need the agility to pivot tactics and messaging to be targeted to the audiences you are trying to reach.
So, it takes careful research and planning to make the most of your investment in lead generation.
ROI on lead generation activities can vary on geography and channel mix, however Social’s property marketing service can offer optimum results as we work with you and your sales teams to fine tune and optimise your campaigns for the greatest return.